The Fat Lady: a portrait's story
by ImprisonedByTechnology
Summary: It hurt to be forgotten, to notice how each year that passed, the students would be even less interested in her name. It hurt to be called the name that made her hate herself.


_Written for:_

_The "A-Maze-Ing Race" Challenge_, using the character prompt: The Fat Lady  
_The "If you dare" Challenge_, using the prompt 415: Increase in size

_In the HPFC forum._

* * *

Getting dressed in the mornings was harder than anyone else thought, even if she used magic. Putting on her corset and tying the laces was not as easier as it used to be before her unintentional increase in size when she widowed. And to put on her shoes? Pft. She had to spend fifteen minutes every day trying to put them on without damaging her fragile, but fat, feet.

Even worse than the physical pain of walking with all her recently gained weight and the longing for her once slender figure, were the whispered critiques given to her by her once friends.

Lady Theodora Imperia Claudine Alexandrine Boleyn did nothing but endure with grace the cruel comments of the other women of the court, even if her heart hurt every time they talked about her weight.

"Doesn't she look lovely, girls?" Lady Margaret Drummond would ask her maids when she had breakfast with her. "Are you sure you want to eat dessert, Dora? You might want to leave the cake for the rest of us!"

The rest of Lady Drummond's guests would then laugh. They always did. At first she had thought it was out of their need to be in Lady Drummond's graces, but soon she learnt the truth. Nobody could see past her large body.

She suffered for a while; he husband dead, no children to make her smile, no parents or siblings to visit. Lady Theodora had nothing. Not even her once sensuous body. What was she if she couldn't be a wife, a mother or a daughter? What was she, if she wasn't considered womanly enough to be a woman?

Lady Theodora spent months wondering those and many other things, until she grew tired of herself and her attitude.

"You make the stars seem boring, my love. You are brighter than they are" her husband used to say, and even in her modesty she knew it was the truth. Before she met him she went to the most prestigious school for wizards and witches in Britain: Hogwarts. Perhaps it was time she went back to her alma mater. Maybe she'd find a job there, as a teacher.

Much to her surprise, getting away from the dull and cruel life in London was easier than she thought. But then again, she had no ties to the city.

"You will be missed, Dora" said the Lady Drummond. "What will we do without your uplifting personality?"

Lady Theodora didn't bother to answer her. Instead, she boarded the carriage that would take her to the school in Scotland. The journey would be long, but with so much knowledge to be remembered she didn't care. Not even the pain in her back and legs prevented her from going north to the great Hogwarts.

Day after day she would study her old books again, recalling the seldom used spells and potions from her youth. With so many handmaids she hadn't needed them, but now she was on her own and every piece of knowledge counted, along with each wave of her wand.

The sight of Hogwarts met her soon, and she didn't waste any time before presenting herself to the current Headmaster.

"I seem to recall you, Lady Boleyn" he said and she nodded.

"You were my Arithmancy teacher for two years, Headmaster Warbeck" said Lady Theodora to the wizard who used to be her teacher. "I was then known as Dora Stoke"

She blushed a little, remembering how he must recall her: young, smiling and slender. She wasn't like that anymore, but the intelligence she had back in her student days remained with her.

Sadly, there were no vacant places in any subject, but the elderly wizard suggested something else.

"I feel bad offering you so little after your long journey, Lady Boleyn" he said. "But you might be employed as an assistant to Madam Catherine and Miss Violet at the hospital wing"

She frowned at first, but she quickly accepted the offer. The Headmaster took her himself to the matron and nurse, who received her warmly even if their eyes betrayed their medical opinion of her body. Lady Theodora tried to stand proud of what she was and not to care about her opinions, but she did.

Once the Headmaster left for his office, awkward silence ensued. She could tell the nurses wanted to comment on her weight. Not like the cruel Lady Drummond, no. Lady Theodora knew if these women wanted to talk about her weight it was because they worried for her health.

"Lady Theodora?" she hears Miss Violet say. "Would you agree to a test to see where your knowledge and abilities lie?"

The Lady Theodora nodded and for the rest of the day she answered to the nurses questions about what she would do when encountering with this or that troubled patient.

A few minutes after the sunset, she sensed discomfort again and looked at Madam Catherine hesitate a bit before finally talking.

"What would you do, if a student comes and you notice he has some... unhealthy eating habits?"

While Lady Theodora knew this was a trick question (she was rich and could afford all the food she might want, but most of these students had nothing but what Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic gave them), she answered with honesty.

"I would tell them to look at me" she said, sadness visible in her blue eyes. "to question themselves if they want to look like this. That would probably stop them from eating too much"

Silence met her words. None of the nurses said anything else, but Madam Catherine waved her wand and produced a white uniform for her. Lady Theodora smiled sincerely. She was part of Hogwarts.

At first the students rejected her, looking her as if she was a freak (just like the women of the court) but she treated them with kindness and respect, so she got that in return. Even if the kids disliked her appearance, they learned to love her for her warm personality and caring attitude.

Lady Theodora was the happiest she had ever been, all thanks to those kids who accepted her and even laugh with her when she sang with her horrible voice. They could see how she tried to amuse them to make them forget about their pain while she cured them.

The years went by and the Lady Theodora grew old. Most of the children attending Hogwarts were the grandsons and granddaughters of those kids she had once cared for. Headmaster Warbeck had died many years before, and Madam Catherine as well. Violet, now her closest friend, got old as well. Everything changed.

Even her.

Her large body grew even more, turning each step she took into a painful agony. Her back hurt everyday, and she had to cast reinforcement charms to any chair she sat on to prevent them from breaking under her weight. The worst was the pain she felt in her chest whenever she went from the hospital wing to the Great Hall for breakfast or dinner. Everything hurt so much.

One day, Lady Theodora told Violet she would be quitting once the year was over. Her friend accepted her decision, knowing fully well how much Lady Theodora suffered.

"You are the bravest woman I have ever met, Dora" said Violet to her. "You suffer so much and still find time to be happy and merry for the children. I admire you"

Lady Theodora shed a few tears that night, and for the first time in her life, she tasted Firewhiskey in the company of Violet.

The Headmaster, now the old Potions professor Andrick Potter, insisted on getting her portrait done after she left Hogwarts.

"I know you won't come back if you cross the Castle's threshold" he told her. She smiled sadly, knowing he spoke the truth.

"I would like for my portrait to be near Catherine's" she told him, but Headmaster Potter shook his head.

"Madam Catherine was smart and loyal, Lady Dora" he said. "But you are brave and as such, you will be where you belong"

She got her portrait done in less than two weeks. The painter complimented her in her ability to keep still for long periods of time. She never told him everything hurt less if she didn't move.

Lady Theodora was amazed with her portrait; as she was still alive, the portrait was still and cold, but she could see the resemblance to herself: the painter captured her very essence (and all of her large body) with accuracy.

She went away that day, without knowing where her portrait would be set.

Nobody in Hogwarts knew of Lady Theodora for a time, but nine weeks after her departure they got a letter. Lady Theodora Boleyn had died.

The children in Hogwarts honored for a whole week without being prompted to do so, and at the end of their mourning, her portrait was hung.

All the Gryffindors were happy to have the Lady Theodora as the guardian of their Common Room, and they were even willing to show their Slytherin classmates where the entrance was so they could talk to the kind Lady too. Hogwarts never saw such benevolent actions between the rival Houses.

The Lady Theodora would talk to all the students who addressed her, and even a few teachers went to her sometimes. She was happy there, as a painting, without pain and devoid of all suffering. Life was never as good as death turned out to be.

But the years went by, and the students who loved the kind nurse graduated. Soon, new students entered the secret room behind her portrait and they didn't talk to her. These students didn't know how kind the Lady Theodora was and never bothered to get to know her.

Her only comfort were the quiet, philosophical visits from Madam Catherine and the wild get aways with Violet, once she died. That wasn't enough, but it was something. At least her body didn't hurt anymore, and the furniture didn't crack under her weight.

But now it hurt to know she was not a person anymore. It hurt to be ignored, to only be told the password so the students would get to spend the rest of their day with their friends.

It hurt to be forgotten, to notice how each year that passed, the students would be even less interested in her name. It hurt to stop being the Lady Theodora Boleyn, just to be called the name she loathed for so much time; the name that made her hate herself.

It hurt to be the Fat Lady.


End file.
